


Union

by Beth Harker (Beth_Harker)



Category: Newsies (1992)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-29
Updated: 2014-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 20:00:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17209988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beth_Harker/pseuds/Beth%20Harker
Summary: Spot, Jack, and David discuss the future of the Newsboys’ Union.  David doesn’t always know how to talk to people.





	Union

Spot looked David up and down, like he was appraising him. He and Jack had only just arrived in Brooklyn for… well, David had joked about it being a diplomatic meeting, but really they were just talking about the union, and whether or not Manhattan and Brooklyn would be banding together in all of this, or standing as two separate organizations with separate needs, and different representation and all that.

David met Spot’s gaze, raising his eyebrows as if to ask what the hell Spot was looking at. No answer. Spot did a slow circle of the two of them. 

“Thought you was coming alone, Jacky Boy,” Spot said. 

“He would’ve been late if he’d come alone,” David answered, before Jack could. 

“Mouth’s the official time keeper now?” Spot sounded interested to Jack, but maybe not to David, who was kind of glaring at Spot. “Does he sit around at your meetings writing out the minutes, like in a courtroom?” 

“Skittery helps,” Jack answered. Keeping minutes had been Dave’s idea, and he was good at it, but he talked so much a lot of the time that it was impossible for him to keep up with writing what he said, so Skittery kept notes. 

“Maybe we don’t want everything to be complete and utter chaos over in Manhattan,” David shot back. 

“You implying that we can’t run meetings here in Brooklyn?” Spot asked. 

“You tell me,” was David’s answer. That was where Jack had to strain to keep his expression serious, because Spot was giving David that appraising look again, and David was aware of it, but not of why Spot might be looking at him strange, or why Spot might think he’d just been insulted. 

“Look,” David said after beat, since Spot had apparently decided it would be more fun not to tell him. “I didn’t come here to be your friend or reminisce about the strike, or even to improve your meetings, assuming you’ve been having any. I…”

Jack was just about to grab onto Dave to try and shut him up, when Spot burst out laughing. That’s all it took to get Jack laughing as well, and somehow he ended up with his head on David’s shoulder instead of his hand. He wrapped his arms around David’s waist for a second, and the other boy stood up straighter, trying to assert how serious he was. 

Jack cleared his throat when he’d finally gotten the laughter under control.

“So,” he said, trying for casual, “down to business?” He could see out of the corner of his eye how red David was, and tried not to look. He didn’t want to embarrass David. It was just funny, was all… really funny. Jack was pretty sure he would be willing pay good money just to watch Spot and David sit around and say stuff to each other.

“Talk,” Spot ordered, taking out a cigarette and leaning back on his stoop to listen.

Before the hour was up, Jack still thought that watching Spot and David speak together was something he’d pay money for, but his reasoning had changed. It took David a while to warm up, sure, but once he was talking about the issues instead of trying to think out how to interact with Spot, he was brilliant. 

By the time they’d gotten everything sorted out, Jack decided that he’d pay to listen to David talk without Spot or anybody else in the picture at all. It was the kind of thing he could do all day. 

As Jack and David left Brooklyn, it was Jack’s turn to wonder why Spot was looking at him strangely, like he was reading secrets in Jack’s face that Jack didn’t know himself.


End file.
